


A Man Goes Where He Wants, When He Wants

by GloriaGilbertPatch



Category: The Mindy Project
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-23
Updated: 2015-03-23
Packaged: 2018-03-19 05:34:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3598323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GloriaGilbertPatch/pseuds/GloriaGilbertPatch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All he wants is, for the first time in his life, to be free. Danny and manhood and driving and Jeremy and Mindy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Man Goes Where He Wants, When He Wants

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scarlettblythe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scarlettblythe/gifts).



They went to the DMV together, a sort of male-bonding moment that was probably happening twenty years too late, but no matter. They lived in New York City and never drove – never _had_ to drive – anyway. Honestly, Danny Castellano could probably have gone the rest of his life without a license, except for the nagging idea at the back of his mind that a man should be able to drive. A man should take off down Thunder Road, throwing up dirt behind him, his arm around his girl as her hair blew back behind her and her light laughter tinkled in the wind. The ideal had darkened the back of Danny’s mind his whole life, even as he’d grown up and grown older and married a woman whose hair wouldn’t have blown anywhere in any kind of wind. And if these days the image of the woman seated next to him, the woman singing along with the radio or snoring softly as her head lolled against the window looked a little more like his colleague than he wanted to admit, well, no one had to know what was going on in the back of his mind.

Just like no one had to know how many times he’d shown up at the DMV, presented his proof of identity, and attempted that stupid test. _Those_ stupid _tests_ , really, because the written was just as bad as the practical. How far was he supposed to park from a fire hydrant? How the fuck was he supposed to know? – and why the fuck did it matter, anyway; there was always a yellow line or a no parking sign to let him know. Who chose these dumb questions, anyway? No one needed to know those answers off the top of his head.

It was still frustrating that he didn’t, though. He was a God-damned medical doctor, after all; he should be able to pass a stupid driver’s license test. Idiotic teenagers passed every day, and there stood Danny, like an idiot, a thirty-seven-year-old man failing time after time. At least this time he was going with Jeremy – who was a little younger than he was, sure, and from England besides, but he was in his thirties, too, and didn’t have a license, either, and Mindy –

Well, no one was questioning his manliness, or if they did, Jeremy certainly didn’t let it bother him. He was calm and cool about the whole thing, not really caring or worrying about passing, just sort of…showing up and getting in the car. Like it was easy. Like it was _nothing_ – like it wasn’t important to him at all but he was sick of bringing his passport to bars to prove he was old enough to drink.

And he passed, and that was the hardest part. He passed, and once again, Danny didn’t. Jeremy Reed, who didn’t care – who didn’t care about _anything_! – he could have _everything_. He smiled for his license picture and it came out perfect and he tucked it in his wallet and went about his business like it didn’t matter. And why should it? Everything came easily to him, whether it was getting a driver’s license, or Dr. Shulman’s approval, or Mindy’s… – everything!

It wasn’t fair, and Jeremy didn’t get it, and that was the worst part. Jeremy had had everything growing up: rich parents, tons of opportunities…piano lessons, for example. And he didn’t even _care_. He could just do things like, what, pass his driving test with no trouble when it was really _hard_ , just kind of making light of the whole thing. And people _liked_ Jeremy, too – people who thought Danny was weird and old and grumpy no matter how many times he’d tried to show them that he was a good guy, a good doctor, a caring friend. Patients, nurses, Dr. Shulman – and, okay, yes, _Mindy Lahiri_ all liked Jeremy, no matter how fake or dismissive Jeremy was. No matter how badly Jeremy treated them.

Well, maybe that last one was only Mindy. But still. She deserved better, you know? She was a good doctor, and charming, and smart, and kind of pretty –

Okay, she was beautiful, happy? She was so beautiful that he could hardly help himself. He’d wanted her since the first day he met her, way back on her first day as a new resident, neatly dressed in St. Brendan’s scrubs with her long dark hair pulled back and a pair of plain plastic-framed glasses balanced on her nose. He’d been married, then, of course, so it wasn’t like he acted on it or anything.

(Unless you counted the fact that he’d bought flowers for Christina on the way home and swooped her into his arms when he came through the door and made love to her more vigorously than he had in a long time, but Danny’s sins weighed heavily enough on his conscience as it was, so he didn’t count that.)

And then Mindy had started dating Tom McDougall, in oral surgery, and Danny had gotten into a painful divorce, and he hadn’t wanted to think about women at all and she had been off the table anyway. At least until a couple of months ago when Tom jilted Mindy for the Serbian bagel girl from downstairs – and _really_ , McDougall? You were this close to marrying Mindy Lahiri and you decided to go for a twenty-two-year-old blonde girl with no ass who barely spoke English?

It wasn’t as if he’d pounced right away – that would have been unkind, not to mention unprofessional. Give her some time to get over the blind asshole who’d dumped her. He’d done his best to be there for her, though. He knew how much it hurt when someone you loved, someone you lived with, someone you _trusted_ just betrayed you like that and took up with someone else. So he’d talked to the head of obstetrics and tried to switch out Mindy’s on-calls, picking up the graveyard shifts so that she could get some sleep, and maybe he’d brought her a latte once or twice, and he put a little extra effort into trying to make her laugh, and –

And then Jeremy Reed had swooped in, with his charm and his suaveness and his British-ness and just, like, swept her off her feet and into his bed. And it wasn’t that Danny was _jealous_ , per se, it was just that…what had Jeremy ever done for her? Even now, he was barely even nice to her, even when she went out of her way to smile at him and talk to him, and God, why was it so fucking easy for Jeremy? It wasn’t enough that he’d been born into privilege and never had to worry about things like if he was going to have time to make dinner and help Richie with his homework and still study for his exams, or if he was going to be able to take advantage of his acceptance letter and go to his dream school or if it, too, was out of his reach. It wasn’t enough that he’d paid for medical school carelessly, like it wasn’t anything, when Danny had lowered himself to _taking off his clothes for money_ just to earn the right to work as hard as everyone else at Columbia. It wasn’t enough that he was tall and cool and collected and charming, no, Jeremy could have all that and Mindy Lahiri, too. And he didn’t even treat her well!

That was the worst part, too. Everything came easily to Jeremy and nothing was precious. Mindy smiled at him – real smiles, with her teeth showing and her eyes glowing – and he didn’t even look up, didn’t even take a second to enjoy it. She trailed kisses down his neck and he read his newspaper. She asked him if he wanted to grab dinner and he said no, he was busy. He was probably selfish in bed, too, but with his kind of luck she probably came anyway, without his even having to try, and it wasn’t that Danny wanted her, but he would _try_ , you know?

Fuck it. He wanted her. He wanted her badly, and he had for years, and he’d done everything he could to get her attention, to make her like him, but he was still just Danny Castellano, the Lame Jerk I Work With, while Jeremy got to be the guy in her bed, with the opportunity to do all the things Danny’d dreamed about for years, and he probably didn’t even try half of them. So many nights Danny had lain awake, shamefully fantasizing about what it would be like to eat her out, the way her big dark eyes would go wide, what her voice would sound like, what her pussy would taste like, and did Jeremy take the time to savor it, if he even did it at all? Did Jeremy use his hands and his mouth on every inch of her body, worshipping her thighs and her toes and her shoulders and _that ass_ , listening for her moans and her sighs and relishing every moment of it – or did he just do what he had to do and get off and get out? Did Jeremy know what a fucking prize he’d won or was it just par for the course, something else that fell into his lap that Danny could only dream about?

And now he could drive, too, and Danny was stuck on the subway again.

(Nothing against the subway. He liked the subway. It was pretty convenient and frankly traffic was bad enough that he probably got where he was going faster by taking the subway than by trying to drive around Manhattan. But still. He wanted the _option_.)

He’d try again, of course. He was so close he could fucking taste it – the power, the freedom, nothing keeping him down, nothing holding him back. Driving anywhere, wherever he wanted to go, and maybe if he went far enough, went fast enough, he’d escape himself, be something more than the guy who tried so hard and still ended up with nothing.


End file.
